Author Archive

Chris Wise started his career with Ove Arup and Partners in 1979, and became their youngest ever director in 1992. Many recognize Wise from his work on the Millennium Bridge in London. He has been heavily involved with creative design education since 1998, when he became a professor at Imperial College in London. As a professor, he also co-founded the constructionarium, which emphasizes “building to learn” for undergraduates. Wise’s creative design philosophy led to his co-founding of Expedition Engineering in 1999; the experimental and cutting edge practice has since won many awards for structural engineering and overall sustainability. He has collaborated on projects with world renowned architects including: Richard Rogers, Norman Foster, and Renzo Piano. Wise’s notable projects while at Expedition include the London Velodrome, The Infinity Bridge, and the Las Arenas Barcelona Bullring. Selected Projects:

Expedition Engineering was founded in 1999 by Chris Wise and Seán Walsh with the mindset that creativity could be applied to engineering projects. As their website states, “controlled risk for high reward” is also a key component to the company’s philosophy. Expedition does experimental and cutting edge work, and believes that a higher return is yielded because of this. Their first major projects included Terminal 5 at Heathrow Airport and The Constructionarium at Imperial College in London; both mainly structural projects in London. Today, the company remains fairly small (40 employees), but has a much wider range of specialties — like infrastructure planning; transportation, environmental, and civil engineering; education, and even artistic and cultural projects. Some of their most notable recent projects are seen above and include the London Velodrome, the Infinity Bridge, and the London Cable Car (below). In 2008, Expeditions shareholders gave away their shares to the company’s employees; they are now protected by the Useful Simple Trust. In 2012, Expedition Engineering was named the Engineering Consultant of the year at the Building Awards.